Oral cancer affects over 30,000 people today in US alone. The treatment of this disease is most effective when detected early. One useful technique in detecting early oral cancer is through the distinction of tissue fluorescence from healthy and abnormal tissue.
The basic physics of the fluorescence and reflectance imaging have been known to produce fluorescence contrast image maps, which assists identification of early malignant tissue.
However, implementation of the fluorescence contrast techniques for practical applications in a practitioner's office have been limited due to various reasons, including the performance and cost of implementation. A need exists, therefore, for an optical medical diagnostic apparatus or system that can be used easily and efficiently in a practitioner's office.